


where the moon shines on the waves

by orphan_account



Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Ancient China, Backstory, Community: disney_kink, Consensual Underage Sex, F/M, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Parent/Child Incest, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chi Fu does have a girl back home. It is his mother.</p><p>He would not have it any other way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the moon shines on the waves

By the time that Chi Fu was six years old, he already knew that he would not be a soldier. He hated it when one of the older boys hit him with a stick, and he was too thin and weedy to hold weapons, and anyway the thought of blood made him feel sick.

"Don't worry," said his mother, as she held him in her lap and gently rubbed cream into his wrist to get rid of the bruise there. She wore her hair loose, and when it brushed against his cheek it felt like silk. "You don't have to be a soldier. You can be whatever you want." She kissed his cheek, and smelled all powdery-flowery. "I'll still love you."

 

It wasn't for many years that he understood why his mother's eyes looked so sad. She had lived with his father's family since she was a child, and married at age twelve. There was a painting of his father on the family shrine, and though his mother looked at it sometimes with sadness, there was something else mixed in there as well.

 

He started to write poetry when he was still young, and dedicated his first one to his mother. She laughed in delight when she read it, a sound like the bubbling of a stream. Years later, he was ashamed of the unimaginative description, that the words did not do justice to her beautiful, pale, oval face or her large dark eyes, her round red lips, the dimples in her cheeks, the thick black hair that reached down almost to her knees.

She pressed her lips to his, wreathing him in the sweetness of her perfume. There was no other woman in the world as beautiful, and he wished that he knew the words to tell her so. "Some day, Fu," she promised him, "You will write for the Emperor himself. People talk about soldiers, but nobody would remember their stories if there were not scholars to write them down."

 

After his father died, he had continued sleeping in his mother's bed, but eventually he had been expected to have his own. For years, he did not sleep well. Only when his mother came on whispering feet to his bed, enfolding him in her soft arms, did he start to sleep again with his head cradled on her breast.

He kissed her first, and her mouth was as sweet as peach blossom. At thirteen, he was still scrawny and inelegant, but when he put his arms around her he felt strong, as if he made her feel safe.

It was her that taught him all of the words for what they did. She called him her younger brother, and he started to call her his big sister in return. It was not as if his grandparents, with whom they lived, much cared what either of them did with their time. They had lost their favourite son and were left with a daughter they did not care for and a grandson who was already looking to be a disappointment.

 

The day that he passed his Imperial Examinations, she kissed him over and over, and he pretended not to taste the tears on her cheeks. For the first time in his life, Chi Fu felt that his grandparents looked at him with pride.

Each time he passed another, she held him tighter, as if she was afraid that someday he would want to leave. As eloquent as he had become in his writing, he still could not find the words to reassure her, and let his body and his mouth do so instead.

 

When the Emperor sent him out with the troops, his mother wept with terror at the thought of losing him, clinging to his neck. He held her very tightly, eyes squeezed closed, breathing in the scent of her skin.

They had become experts at communicating without saying a word aloud. For all of his years, she had supported him, believed in him; he knew that she felt isolated from all of the world except for him. He did not want her to be left alone in this house, and could not even begin to consider that he might not come back. The pen, and not the sword, was his tool.

 

When he came back, her face lit up, and even after all of these years it was still like watching the moon rise and the stars come out. And nobody ever needed to know about him, and her, and them.


End file.
